Proper 7 (A) + Equal in Christ + 6.25.17
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| (http://howard-carter.blogspot.com/2015/02/ for-those-of-you-in-cheap-seats-id-like.html) |
M. Campbell-Langdell
All Santos, Oxnard
(Genesis 21:8–21; Ps.
86:1–10, 16–17; Romans 6:1b–11; Matthew 10:24–39)
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall
to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all
counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows (Matthew
10:29-31).”
Preparing around this passage this week, I learned about
Kenneth Feinberg, a lawyer who was chair of the September 11 Victim
Compensation Fund, which distributed funds to the family of each of those
killed in the 2001 attacks on that day. He began with a formula typically used
to calculate the value of peoples’ lifetime income, he then used his discretion
to distribute as little as $250,000 dollars for lower level workers and as much
as $7.1 million for CEOs and other executives.[1]
What is not mentioned in this story is how this played out
demographically, but we can guess that there were a whole lot more blue collar
workers of color than CEOs.
As Feinberg met with the families, he began to question this
premise of our legal system, that no two lives have the same value. But he
decided that the law was “in conflict with my growing belief in the equality of
all life.”[2]
Later, he received a call from Virginia Tech with a request
that he manage a fund to send funds to the families of the victims of that
shooting in 2007. He replied, that he would, on the condition that “all
victims-students and faculty alike-would receive the same compensation.”[3]
God has counted the hairs on our heads and we all count in
God’s eyes- there is no one too small or insignificant to be important to God.
But sometimes we are reminded by the harsh realities of our
lives that this is not the case for the world. By and large, CEOs get treated
like a different class of being than custodians. And this is not new. A case in point is our
reading today from Genesis. To catch you up on the backstory, Sarah could not
have kids, which was kind of a huge deal in ancient cultures where the survival
of the race was always in question. So she has Hagar her slave step in (as many
have pointed out, without asking Hagar what she thinks) and then when Hagar has
a child things are a bit rocky. But even rockier when God’s amazing promise of
a child is fulfilled to Sarah and Isaac is born to her. Now that Sarah has a
legitimate child, she doesn’t want pesky Ishmael in the way. And Hagar and Ishmael
are sent out into the desert with just a bit of food and water.
Womanist theologian (or African-American feminist theologian Renita Weems) tells us in her work Just a Sister Away about how Sarah and Hagar’s story points up some similarities between not just white women and women of color but also educated, highly skilled working women and women in menial labor jobs. She points out that Sarah could have advocated for Hagar rather than sent her away. That she could have been a sister to her.
Womanist theologian (or African-American feminist theologian Renita Weems) tells us in her work Just a Sister Away about how Sarah and Hagar’s story points up some similarities between not just white women and women of color but also educated, highly skilled working women and women in menial labor jobs. She points out that Sarah could have advocated for Hagar rather than sent her away. That she could have been a sister to her.
She says that “for those of us who are educated and employed,
there is always the potential to be a Sarai; and lamentably, there are far too
many opportunities in a capitalist society for her to surface. Yet most of us
are just a paycheck away from being a Hagar.”[4]
God tells us that our lives are worth more than many
sparrows’, but how do we treat each other, our fellow sisters and brothers,
with love and respect? And here I don’t mean just our literal brothers and
sisters, because as Jesus describes there is also room for division there
unfortunately, but how do we see each other as sisters and brothers. Whether
you are the educated person paying attention to whether you treat the person
you hire to clean your house or fix your toilet differently than your colleagues
or whether you are the person who does the cleaning or the fixing and you have
to look at how you can somehow see each person as your equal because in Christ
that is what you are.
How can we, as Weems says, help a sister “whose back [is] up against a wall?”[5] Hagar was in that position and sadly it was not Sarah’s compassion but God’s intervention that saved Ishmael and her.
But the good news is that God did intervene! God intervened because even if to Sarah Isaac was the only important son, to God Ishmael was important, too. He too would be the father of a nation. He too was special in God’s eyes.
Each of us was sent here with a purpose. Not one of us, not even the most lost soul of us is without worth in God’s eyes. We were each sent here on a mission to share God’s love. So we must think about how to go about that every day. How to see that each one with whom we interact is here not just to clean or to be an administrator but to be a child of God. And to share God’s love with the world.
How can we, as Weems says, help a sister “whose back [is] up against a wall?”[5] Hagar was in that position and sadly it was not Sarah’s compassion but God’s intervention that saved Ishmael and her.
But the good news is that God did intervene! God intervened because even if to Sarah Isaac was the only important son, to God Ishmael was important, too. He too would be the father of a nation. He too was special in God’s eyes.
Each of us was sent here with a purpose. Not one of us, not even the most lost soul of us is without worth in God’s eyes. We were each sent here on a mission to share God’s love. So we must think about how to go about that every day. How to see that each one with whom we interact is here not just to clean or to be an administrator but to be a child of God. And to share God’s love with the world.
At the Episcopal Evangelism and social media course I took
the other day, we learned that “we seek, name and celebrate Jesus’ loving
presence in the stories of all people-then invite everyone to more.”
This is the kind of evangelism we are invited into as
Episcopalians and as Christians in general. An evangelism that remembers that
God has all sorts of stories – Sarah’s story and Hagar’s story and your story
and my story, and we can all work to honor each other’s stories and support
each other just that little bit more every day until there are no more young
mothers with their backs against the wall and no more children crying to God in
the desert for help. In the meantime, God keeps breaking in and reminding us of
our foolishness in the case of our mistreatment of others and of our worth in
his eyes, especially when we are mistreated.
Every one of us is precious. Black and brown lives and blue
collar lives are precious just as we as a society have affirmed that educated
and white lives are precious. Everyone who fits the rainbow in between is
precious. Let us lift up our sisters and
brothers of every race and of every background and work toward a time when the
divisions cease and we can dance with our God in peace and joy. Amen.
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